Michael Graham points out that a problem with the idea that “everyone should go to college” is that it follows that taxpayers must pay for “everyone”. In effect, taxpayers are paying, and he gives his own state as an example.
Every year Massachusetts taxpayers pour hundreds of millions of dollars into the University of Massachusetts system, subsidizing college costs for all. Add the $36 billion in federal Pell Grants and that giant sucking sound is the money going from your wallet to some kid’s six-year bong party known as “the college experience.”
He asks us to look around and seriously consider who these kids are.
… The kid behind the fast-food counter, the geek camped out at Best Buy waiting for the Call of Duty game, the girl popping her gum at the hair salon.
Would it really be the “best investment in America” to spend $100,000 of our money sending each one of them to college?
The answer is no.
It’s bunk. About 50 percent of current college kids are just there because mom and dad don’t want to explain at the next cocktail party that Junior isn’t college material. These mediocre students clog our classrooms and drive up college costs. In the end, they’re still mediocre students with meaningless degrees who wind up working as the assistant manager at a TGI Fridays.
Who ends up getting screwed? The rest of the students who actually belong in college. Because demand is artificially high, so are college costs — up 8.3 percent in just the past year at public colleges.
The more worthy goal is to promote the preparation of all citizens to become productive members of society, but a four-year college degree is not the right solution for “everyone”.
Cost of College 